International Courant
President Ebrahim Raisi, his international minister and different senior officers have been confirmed killed in a helicopter crash after a protracted in a single day search in dense fog and snow within the mountainous terrain of Iran’s rugged East Azerbaijan province.
Their our bodies have been discovered Monday morning, a number of hours after their helicopter crashed, state media reported.
The accident poses a problem to the nation’s senior management, with Iran amid heightened regional and international tensions, primarily linked to the battle in Gaza.
This is a have a look at the officers who died:
Ebrahim Raisi, Iranian President
The 63-year-old Iranian chief has lengthy been seen because the successor to Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s highest authority.
Raisi was a hardline spiritual conservative with deep ties to Iran’s judiciary and non secular elite.
In his early twenties, he was appointed prosecutor in a number of cities till he was posted to the capital of Tehran in 1989 to work as a deputy prosecutor.
His first try and turn into president in 2017 failed, however he lastly succeeded in 2021.
Raisi had risen by means of the ranks through the years and in 2016 grew to become chairman of the Astan Quds Razavi (AQR), the most important spiritual endowment in Mashhad, cementing his standing throughout the Iranian institution. The AQR is a colossal bonyad, or charity, that has billions of {dollars} in belongings and is the custodian of the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia imam.
However the latest Iranian president has confronted controversy through the years.
In 1988, he served on a fee that oversaw a collection of executions of political prisoners. That made him unpopular with the Iranian opposition and led to the US imposing sanctions in opposition to him.
Extra lately, he has been offended in regards to the US place on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal – referred to as the Joint Complete Plan of Motion (JCPOA) – and the failure of different signatories to avoid wasting the pact. Consequently, he introduced that Iran was ramping up its nuclear program, but additionally mentioned that Tehran was not enthusiastic about constructing a bomb.
Raisi was additionally an in depth ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and supported his authorities’s battle in opposition to the Syrian opposition, which has left a whole bunch of 1000’s useless.
He additionally led the nation throughout the 2022 protests over the demise of Mahsa Amini within the custody of Iran’s morality police, a interval when the UN mentioned Iran dedicated crimes in opposition to humanity throughout its crackdown.
Most lately, Raisi led Iran by means of a standoff with Israel over the continuing battle in Gaza.
Iran has spoken out in opposition to the battle, as have its regional allies within the so-called “axis of resistance” in opposition to Israel and its Western allies.
Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iranian International Minister
Iran’s high diplomat, who was within the crashed helicopter with President Raisi, was instrumental in shifting Iran’s international coverage from engagement with the West to bettering relations with its regional neighbors.
Amirabdollahian, 60, has held varied positions in Iran’s International Ministry since 1997, together with as ambassador to Bahrain and deputy international minister for Arab and African affairs.
Raisi nominated him as international minister after he grew to become president in 2021.
Amirabdollahian helped restore Iran’s diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia as a part of a Chinese language-brokered deal and visited the dominion in 2023 when relations between the 2 nations had thawed considerably.
For the reason that outbreak of the battle in Gaza, Amirabdollahian has been touring throughout the Center East to coordinate with allies, together with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and to convey Iran’s positions to nations within the area.
He holds a PhD in Worldwide Relations from the College of Tehran.
Malik Rahmati, governor of the Iranian province of East Azerbaijan
Malek Rahmati was lately appointed by the Iranian cupboard as the brand new governor of East Azerbaijan province.
Earlier than that, he had taken on a variety of roles inside Iran’s political system.
He was beforehand appointed head of Iran’s Privatization Group and deputy director of the AQR.
Rahmati was additionally as soon as head of the Razavi Financial Group, which was based within the late Nineteen Nineties to lift the AQR’s monetary assets; and member of the board of administrators, and deputy head of the Kowsar Financial Group, an entity lively in lots of financial sectors, together with mining, agriculture and healthcare.
Rahmati had additionally held a number of different management positions in Iran’s Ministry of Inside.
Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-Hashem, Consultant of Iran’s Supreme Chief in East Azerbaijan
Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the supreme chief’s consultant in East Azerbaijan province and an imam within the metropolis of Tabriz, have been additionally among the many useless.
Ale-Hashim was additionally a member of the provincial chamber of the Expediency Council and a provincial deputy within the Meeting of Specialists.
Who else was murdered?
Sardar Seyed Mehdi Mousavi, head of Raisi’s surveillance group, the helicopter pilot Colonel Seyed Taher Mostafavi, co-pilot Colonel Mohsen Daryanush and flight technician Main Behrouz Ghadimi have been additionally all killed within the crash.
Aviation analyst Kyle Bailey instructed Al Jazeera that the shortage of communication from the helicopter pilot or every other member of the flight crew seemingly means the crash was on account of a “severe controllability concern”.
If a helicopter has a severe technical downside in flight, the pilot’s first job is “to maintain the airplane flying, after which communications comes second,” he mentioned.
From left: technician Behrouz Ghadimi, pilot Seyed Taher Mostafavi and co-pilot Mohsen Daryanush, the crew of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi that crashed in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province on Could 19, 2024 (revealed by way of Al Jazeera )
Who died together with Iranian President Raisi within the helicopter crash? | Political information
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